With the continued advancement of digital processing systems, software applications are used now to perform many of the tasks previously performed using physical devices.
For example, a computer system management application allows administrators of the system to assign how much data storage space is available for specific users of the system. Because storage is typically measured in megabytes or gigabytes, the potential range of settings is huge. Direct manipulation controls such as slider controls for defining the amount of storage assigned thus face a problem—a single mapping between movement of the mouse and movement of the slider control will either facilitate gross changes in value or small changes in value but not both. This is a particular problem when a length of the slider control is small when compared to the range of assigned values within that length.
In more concrete terms, say 100 megabytes of storage are available to be assigned using a slider control, with the left-hand side representing 0 megabytes and the right-hand side representing 100 megabytes. The administrator wants to assign exactly 25 megabytes. With a single mapping between mouse movement and slider movement on the screen, the administrator will easily be able to set the slider to approximately 25 megabytes by moving the mouse to the right or left based upon the length between the left hand side and the right hand side. However, in many cases it will be very difficult to set the slider to exactly 25 megabytes because the slightest nudge of the mouse position will cause the value to change by a large number of bytes (e.g., possibly on the order of several hundred or thousand) due to the ratio of the range of assigned values to the length between the left hand side and right hand side.
Accordingly, many applications require a subtask in which the user must precisely specify a value to many degrees of precision. Adjusting settings for these tasks often requires selection of a preset precision value from a list for performing fine adjustments. Alternatively, slide bars that allow coarse adjustments of limited precision between a preset minimum and maximum value for a setting are also sometimes used for selection of a value. Accordingly, what is needed is a system for allowing both coarse adjustments and fine adjustments to be made on an application utilizing one slider bar.
The present invention addresses such a need.